About the Legatum Institute

The Legatum Institute is a London-based think-tank with a bold vision: to create a global movement of people committed to creating the pathways from poverty to prosperity and the transformation of society.

A welcome from our CEO

The world today faces many challenges. These challenges transcend domestic politics, pay no attention to national borders, and have little regard for established norms or traditions.

More than ever, people are calling for authentic new leadership to deliver social and economic wellbeing, and businesses, communities and politicians across the world are searching for effective new responses to the deepest problems in society.

The Legatum Institute exists to provide both the leadership and the vision to address these challenges; to shape the values, ideas and policies which will transform society and see all people prosper, creating the pathways from poverty to prosperity. This is our ambition and I invite you to join us.

Baroness Philippa Stroud

CEO of the Legatum Institute

Children at the PRAYAS shelter home in Samatipur dance during their free time. All of the children of the shelter home are rescued from traffickers. PRAYAS was one of the first partners of the Freedom Fund, a private-donor philanthropic fund set up in 2013 with the ultimate aim of bringing an end to modern slavery.Photo: Atul Loke, India, 2010

A group of boys play in the hills overlooking Gaharwa Lake, Burera District after a mass drug administration against intestinal worms and schistosomiasis. Initiatives like these were the foundation stones for the creation of The END Fund in 2012.Photo: Robin Hammond, Rwanda, 2010

Selamaw studies at home by the light of the window after her Second Chance class, an initiative formed and supported by the Luminos Fund. Her parents are subsistence farmers and were unable to afford the pencil and books to send her to the government school. The accelerated learning pedagogy provided by the Luminos Fund means that Selamaw will catch up with and rejoin children her own age in the government schools.Photo: Rosie Hallam, Ethiopia, 2013

Our network

The Legatum Institute is part of a global community of organisations founded and supported by the Legatum Foundation. The Legatum Foundation invests in the development of people and communities and was established with the express purpose of investing in philanthropic ventures and exploring and promoting transformational ideas. The Legatum Foundation has originated, incubated and scaled a number of ground-breaking interventions, which include:

The Freedom Fund — which has become the largest funder of frontline organisations, and a leading advocated of a systems-based approach to ending modern slavery. Partnering with visionary investors, governments and anti-slavery organisations, the Fund tackles the systems that allow slavery to persist and thrive. By mobilising the knowledge and capital needed to end these crimes against humanity, the Freedom Fund is dedicated to building a world free of slavery.

The End Fund — which aims to control and eliminate the most prevalent neglected diseases among the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. In the Fund’s first five years, it successfully treated more than 140 million men, women and children with over 331 million treatments, and cured conditions that are simple in treatment but devastating if untreated.

The Luminos Fund — which aims to restore hope and opportunity for millions who are out of school. The Fund is dedicated to developing and scaling innovative approaches to learning, for the most vulnerable children around the world. The Fund’s capstone initiative, the Speed School programme, equips out-of-school students with basic reading, writing and math skills, through an accelerated curriculum that compresses three years into ten months. The success of this programme, which saw over 100,000 children re-enter the education system, enabled the Legatum Foundation to launch the Luminos Fund in 2015.

The Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT — which provides a community hub for students, alumni and faculty who seek to accelerate social and economic progress through innovation-driven entrepreneurship. The Center was established by the Legatum Foundation in 2007 in order to demonstrate the power of entrepreneurship to catalyse transformation in society and to improve global wellbeing.

Our role as a charity

Understanding, measuring and explaining the journey from poverty to prosperity for individuals, communities and nations.

Our events, reports, and publications aim to advance education in the fields of economic, political, and social policy. We are not party political and do not promote any particular party policies; we remain open to all ideas and policies that will help move people from poverty to prosperity.

In disseminating our work, we aim to reach the widest possible audience and we actively engage with individuals from the business community, politics, academia, as well as the general public. Our engagements with political figures span all of the major political parties and we welcome constructive dialogue with people from all political persuasions. All policy recommendations stemming from our research are grounded in and shaped by the evidence we uncover in our research and are designed to educate the public and further our charitable objects.

What is Prosperity?

Prosperity is…

Our research programmes

The Courage in Journalism Award was created to highlight the dangers faced by journalists around the world. The Award is presented posthumously to a journalist whose death in the past year was a direct result of their work.

Our More Good Homes programme asks what the planning system should look like in 2030 in order to deliver sufficient numbers of affordable homes, creating a new pathway to prosperity, and a new generation of homeowners.

Legatum Prosperity Index

Since 2007, the Legatum Prosperity Index™ has evaluated long-term changes in global prosperity, pinpointing drivers of progress and highlighting those nations that have made the greatest strides forward.

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The Legatum Institute Foundation

The Legatum Institute Foundation is a registered charity (number 1140719), and a company limited by guarantee and incorporated in England and Wales (company number 7430903), registered address 11 Charles Street, London, W1J 5DW